News Somali Pirates seize super tanker

[Proton Soup]

A warning in today's Brett Stevens column:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122757123487054681.html
Sub. reqd.

i didn't need a subscription. good article.

 

[OAQfirst]

I read today that they only have about 20 tankers a day passing through the area. If other merchant ships are more than that, perhaps there are a total of 50 major merchant ships a day. It seems to me the answer would then be to organize convoys. Every 6 hours you get 12-14 ships together with a frigate to escort them through the region. It's about 1500 miles, or a 60 hour trip at 25 knots. You'd need about 20 warships.

That would certainly put a damper on the piracy of tankers. Then the pirates would start looking for other kinds of targets, no?

 

[LowlyPion]

i didn't need a subscription. good article.

Thanks for the link. That certainly coincides with my ideas about how to handle things. The longer the situation is allowed to fester the greater will be the ultimate toll in putting it down. The more ransoms that are paid, the more weapons they can buy and the greater favor they can curry with the more innocent Somalis living in desperate poverty.

The root cause is poverty and a country that has basically ceased to function. But rehabilitating that under the threat of such barbarism should give pause as being in a sense another means of extortion that cannot be tolerated. The only reasonable way forward then is to put it down harshly and make it an unacceptable way for Somalia to consider making progress.

The pirates are enemies of all civilization and until the Somalis come to believe that too, then there seems little choice but to simply make it a shoot on sight free fire zone along the Somali coast.

 

[mgb_phys]

then there seems little choice but to simply make it a shoot on sight free fire zone along the Somali coast.

Oops http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7749245.stm

 

[Wellesley]

I agree with LowlyPion. The pirates will keep doing what they're doing until someone gets rid of them.

This certainly is not achieved by releasing the pirates back to their country of origin after they are captured. As it was mentioned earlier, convoys are the best way to protect the ships. Safety in numbers.

 

[Proton Soup]

Oops http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7749245.stm

the vessel did not issue a distress call?

 

[Borek]

Oops http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7749245.stm

Not judging whether it was a trawler or pirate ship, that's the most logical line of defence and of making things more difficult to deal with - hide pirates behind civilians.

 

[LowlyPion]

It's an unfortunate outcome, but war is not a nice circumstance. If there is any blame it is the pirates. The trawler is from a part of the world that has centuries old piracy problems of its own along the Malacca Straits that has festered as well.

Now that the pirates threaten the oil supply lines to the western developed countries they should expect to be seeing greater action against them. Where once Somalia problems were of little interest because ... well why not just let them kill each other and starve to death - humanitarianism cost too much, if they don't have any oil to interest us.

I guess things have changed.

 

[Proton Soup]

“We have no life. Our last resource is the sea, and foreign trawlers are plundering our fish,” a pirate said when the BBC called.

http://www.newser.com/story/43961/reporters-preteen-daughter-gets-pirates-to-talk.html

maybe if they'd just limit their attacks to fishing boats: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,457626,00.html

 

[LowlyPion]

What's that old Somali saying?

Teach a man to jack a fishing boat and he can feed his family. Teach him to jack a supertanker and he can retire to villa in the Mediterranean?

 

[Office_Shredder]

What's that old Somali saying?

Teach a man to jack a fishing boat and he can feed his family. Teach him to jack a supertanker and he can retire to villa in the Mediterranean?

He would retire to his beachside property in Somalia, but unfortunately a bunch of pirates took it over.

 

[mgb_phys]

Aren't pirates supposed to bury their treasure under the sand on a desert island?
If you steal a million barrels of oil - doesn't this get a bit recursive?

 

[Office_Shredder]

No, because now the oil is in barrels. In 20 years they come back and dig it up, and it's ready to sell for 150 bucks a pop. No overhead

 

[Cyrus]

This just in. The pirates made off with the loot, capsized, and drown!

AHHAHAAHAHa...

 

[russ_watters]

Karma can be a real ***** sometimes!

 

[LowlyPion]

Link to the story:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/africa/article5489141.ece

 

[Proton Soup]

oh, the ironies

 

[Borek]

Again, although this tanker is much smaller:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090326/ap_on_re_af/piracy

 

[arildno]

Let the super tankers crews get licenses to kill pirates.

THAT will put a quick end to the endemic piracy off the Horn of Africa.

 

[russ_watters]

Let the super tankers crews get licenses to kill pirates.

THAT will put a quick end to the endemic piracy off the Horn of Africa.

You don't need a license to kill pirates, you only need a gun. But that's not as straightforward a solution as you think: it is expensive to hire a security crew for a ship and there is no guarantee that it'll work. I'm not sure if a tanker hull will stop an ak-47 round, but I'm certain it won't stop an RPG.

 

[drankin]

You don't need a license to kill pirates, you only need a gun. But that's not as straightforward a solution as you think: it is expensive to hire a security crew for a ship and there is no guarantee that it'll work. I'm not sure if a tanker hull will stop an ak-47 round, but I'm certain it won't stop an RPG.

It's insurance. How much are you willing to pay to keep your stuff secure vs how much you could lose.

A typical hull will stop a 7.62x39mm AK round but not an RPG. But the pirates aren't trying to sink the ship, just rip-off/ransom the contents.

I suppose if you had one person on 4 corners of the ship with a large caliber distance weapon, rotated out every 12hrs you could get away with an eight man security crew @ 200-250k/yr per person (maybe a bit less if you hire locals to the area). That would include salary/meals/weapons/training. I mean, they wouldn't be Special Forces or anything, just gun hands. So the expenditure would be 1.6-2m/yr per tanker that transports thru that area. Leverage that against the loss if you have to pay it out in ransom, loss of shipping schedules & crew members lives. I'm sure someone is trying to make a biz out of it.

 

[Borek]

We have discussed these things earlier in the thread. Such approach was valid before pirates invested in some higher calibre guns. At the moment their equipement (in terms of fire power) is just too good.

 

[LowlyPion]

A typical hull will stop a 7.62x39mm AK round but not an RPG. But the pirates aren't trying to sink the ship, just rip-off/ransom the contents.

If I were a pirate and the ships started getting uppity by firing live rounds, maybe putting a couple ships to the bottom would be an object lesson in showing them it pays to be meek? It is a business after all.

Though sinking a ship is not necessarily so easy. Unless it's a tanker that can spill liquids into the sea, holes above the water line won't necessarily cause critical damage. Though one can imagine that they could easily enough acquire arms that could cause greater damage than an RPG.

 

[drankin]

If I were a pirate and the ships started getting uppity by firing live rounds, maybe putting a couple ships to the bottom would be an object lesson in showing them it pays to be meek? It is a business after all.

Though sinking a ship is not necessarily so easy. Unless it's a tanker that can spill liquids into the sea, holes above the water line won't necessarily cause critical damage. Though one can imagine that they could easily enough acquire arms that could cause greater damage than an RPG.

The tactical advantage is the tanker. They have a relatively stationary platform to shoot a large caliber weapon from with better accuracy and range. The RPG has an accuracy range of 300 meters and from a moving boat makes it tougher though their target is large. I don't believe the pirates are interested in gun battles though. They are looking for easy pickings. A tanker firing at them, I would think, would cause them to consider a different target. Speculating, of course.

 

[russ_watters]

A typical hull will stop a 7.62x39mm AK round but not an RPG. But the pirates aren't trying to sink the ship, just rip-off/ransom the contents.

True, but if you sink one, the next might be more inclined to stop.

 

[Alfi]

The next one ?

http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/africa/04/08/ship.hijacked/index.html

(CNN) -- Pirates near Somalia's coastline attacked a cargo ship Wednesday with a crew of at least 20 U.S. nationals aboard, according to the company that owns the vessel.

Maersk Line Ltd issued a statement saying it believes the U.S.-flagged Maersk Alabama was hijacked. If so, it would be the sixth hijacking over the past week in the region.
...

Is sailing wide of the area is not an option?

 

[mheslep]

The next one ?

http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/africa/04/08/ship.hijacked/index.html

(CNN) -- Pirates near Somalia's coastline attacked a cargo ship Wednesday with a crew of at least 20 U.S. nationals aboard, according to the company that owns the vessel.

Maersk Line Ltd issued a statement saying it believes the U.S.-flagged Maersk Alabama was hijacked. If so, it would be the sixth hijacking over the past week in the region.
...

Is sailing wide of the area is not an option?

It is an expensive option

 

[Gokul43201]

Is sailing wide of the area is not an option?

From the CNN article:

Pirates boarded the container vessel at 7:30 a.m. Wednesday, about 350 miles off Somalia's coast.

That sounds like about as wide a berth as they can possibly give the Somali coast without actually going around Africa. Virtually all ocean traffic to Asia from Europe and the Eastern seaboard (US and Canada) must take the Mediterranean route.

http://www.wilhelmsen.com/services/shipping/PublishingImages/Shipping_routes.gif

That involves going through the Gulf of Aden. That necessarily means that you are putting yourself within 200 miles of the Somali coast, which is what makes piracy in these waters so lucrative (probably more so than in the Malacca straits).

 

[edward]

This ship had a highly trained crew according to the evening news. Now if they only had a few shoulder launched missiles there would have been no boarding of that ship.

A close up fire fight seems to be the thing the ship owners fear the most. A ships crew using stand off weapons will avoid that. If this keeps up the pirates will be the ones with the shoulder fired missiles if the don't already.

Why don't the ships travel closer together convoy style?? Navy protection would be much easier. The faster naval ships would be more effective.

Where and how are the pirates getting the location of the ships. I doubt that they are just sitting out there 350 miles from shore in hopes that a ship may come by. I have a gut feeling that they have bought a lot of radio equipment.

Ships constantly broadcast their exact location. Perhaps that information should be encoded.

Obviously doing the same old same old isn't accomplishing anything.

 

[mheslep]

...Where and how are the pirates getting the location of the ships.

standard marine Radar no doubt
http://www.defender.com/radar.html

Edit: oh, and a Radar detector might do a pretty location job good job on the passing ships Radar.